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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #68498 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68498)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of The sky sheriff, by Thomas Burtis
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: The sky sheriff
-       The pioneer spirit lives again in the Texas Airplane Patrol
-
-Author: Thomas Burtis
-
-Illustrator: B. J. Rosenmeyer
-
-Release Date: July 11, 2022 [eBook #68498]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SKY SHERIFF ***
-
-
-
-
-
-                          The Sky Sheriff
-
-    The Pioneer Spirit Lives Again in the Texas Airplane Patrol
-
-                         By Thomson Burtis
-
-
-                 Illustrations by B. J. Rosenmeyer
-
-
-    [Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April
-    1923 issue of Blue Book Magazine.]
-
-[Illustration: Sure enough, there was a mounted man crossing a tiny
-clearing, two or three miles to the westward]
-
-The blazing sun of a Texas afternoon turned air and drab brown earth
-to gold. Not a breath stirred the huge white stocking that served as
-a wind-indicator on the airdrome of the McMullen Flight of the Air
-Service border patrol.
-
-Seven men were standing in a line south of the airdrome. Six of them
-were tanned young chaps with the look of the open in their steady
-eyes with tiny sun-crinkles at the corners. The other man wore a
-flowing gray mustache, a sombrero that dwarfed the others’ Stetsons,
-and ornately embossed cowboy boots. He was known from one end of the
-Rio Grande to the other as Sheriff Bill Trowbridge.
-
-A low drone came to the ears of the group, and far in the distance
-they glimpsed the tiny form of a ship, diving with motor on for the
-airdrome. Hickman looked up at the plane.
-
-“Probably Tex MacDowell and Sleepy Spears.”
-
-“Who’s Spears?” asked Trowbridge.
-
-“New man from the Air Service Mechanics’ School at Donovan Field,”
-explained Perkins. “He’s the sleepiest-looking guy in the world.
-Yesterday Tex and Sleepy announced they were going to fly to Laredo,
-if I’d let ’em, and go over to the ‘Bee’ hangout in Nuevo Laredo,
-and either win a fortune or else get entirely broke.”
-
-Captain Perkins’s face was serious.
-
-Sheriff Trowbridge glanced at him sharply. Apparently there was
-somewhat of puzzlement, disapproval, in the new commanding officer’s
-words.
-
-Trowbridge was grinning widely. “Did yuh ever have any previous
-experience handlin’ wildcats?”
-
-Captain Perkins shook his head. “Live and learn, I guess,” said he.
-
-The ship circled northward, banked around toward the field, and the
-roaring motor ceased. Then the De Haviland dropped over the low
-fence that formed the northern boundary of the field. Waiting
-mechanics in front of a hangar seized the wings and helped bring the
-ship into the line.
-
-The two flyers climbed out of the cock-pits.
-
-“See that short fellow walking as if every step would be his last?”
-said Jennings. “That’s Sleepy.”
-
-Trowbridge smote his thigh.
-
-“I get yuh now,” he stated. “Isn’t Sleepy the hombre that had a
-run-in with some would-be bad men up in Barnes City a few months
-ago?”
-
-“He’s the one,” said Pop Cravath, wiping the sweat from his bald
-spot with a voluminous khaki handkerchief.
-
-Spears’ drooping eyelids were raised to look at the little group. A
-slow smile stretched the already wide mouth.
-
-“Meet Sheriff Trowbridge, Sleepy,” said Perkins.
-
-“Delighted. I’ve heard several mouthfuls about you, Sheriff,” said
-Sleepy.
-
-“Did you break the ‘Bee’?” inquired Trowbridge solemnly.
-
-“They took advantage of us,” sighed Sleepy. “They fed us Benedictine
-and Mescal. The last I remember was shooting two hundred at the
-crap-table and then bursting into ribald grief when two sixes turned
-up. We woke up in the alley alongside the Laredo House this
-morning.”
-
-Captain Perkins’s lean, square-jawed face was crossed with varying
-expressions of merriment, wonder, and disapproval. Apparently the
-Captain was completely puzzled--unable to understand the facets in
-his flyers’ characters.
-
-“I’ve got to meet the four-ten from San Antone,” said the Sheriff,
-suddenly. “My old friend George Bilney is comin’ in. Say, I’m going
-to bring George out here this evenin’, mebbe. He’s station agent and
-storekeeper up here at Willett. He’s only in town to the back train
-at ten, but he’s got a daughter you boys ought to meet. She’s the
-Queen of Sheba, and likewise the Lily of the Valley.”
-
-“That sure is interesting. You show us a way to meet her, Sheriff,
-and we’ll show ourselves grateful,” said Sleepy.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-That evening Sleepy Spears drove a dusty roadster down the main
-street of McMullen. He saw the train come in and saw the sheriff
-meet Pappy George Bilney, a little wisp of a white-bearded man.
-
-Sleepy then drew up to the curb in front of a drug store with a
-flourish and shut off the motor. As he turned to climb out, his gaze
-fell on the face of a tall, thin, stooping fellow with drooping
-brown mustachios. As if by some hypnotic influence, the stranger’s
-close-set eyes rose to meet the flyer’s gaze, then dropped. The man
-walked on.
-
-“That’s that foreman from Barnes City!” murmured Sleepy. “Must ’ave
-just got out of jail, if old man Shaler did what he said he was
-going to do after this bird’s scheme to tar and feather poor old
-Correll. I wonder what he might be doing here?”
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-A like mental query regarding Spears was arousing fear in the mind
-of the “bird”--Cal Buchanan, as he called himself. For Cal Buchanan,
-being a coyote by nature instead of a wolf, had within the last few
-hours formulated a wolf’s plan to resuscitate his fallen fortunes,
-and when a coyote essays a wolf’s role he is likely to shy at a
-shadow.
-
-As he lounged along the lively street, his small eyes roved
-constantly, seeing nothing but mental images. Girls and women whose
-clothes would not have been out of place on the leading
-thoroughfares of the largest cities; trimly dressed men along with
-others in cowboy boots and flannel shirts; here a store window that
-might have been transplanted from Manhattan next to a display of
-ornate saddles and lariats; a five-thousand-dollar limousine passing
-a hitching-rack where drooping cow-ponies awaited their owners--all
-were vague to him as he remained immersed in his plans.
-
-Sleepy Spears had been farthest from his thoughts until the square,
-sunburnt countenance had appeared with all the effect of a sudden
-and unwelcome vision.
-
-His thoughts turned back to his experience with Spears six months
-before. While drunk, he had visited the Barnes City fair, where
-Spears and Al Johnson, from Donovan Field, were giving flying
-exhibitions. Then had come that row with Correll, Spears’s mechanic,
-and the dream of tar-and-feathering Correll with the help of three
-confederates.
-
-In a remote cabin the plan was working well, and the four men were
-just ready to strip Correll, when a human tornado in the form of
-Spears had burst in the door. From that time on, events were rather
-vague in Buchanan’s mind. Later he had learned that Spears, learning
-of the plot too late to overtake the hazing party by automobile, had
-made a parachute jump at night from Al Johnson’s airplane in order
-to reach Correll in time.
-
-Was there any possibility that Spears, recognizing him, could
-interfere with the scheme that he had in mind? Nervous as a cat, he
-finally arose, leaving his food, paid his check, and walked out.
-Spears or no Spears, his mind was made up. There did not seem to be
-any reason to believe that the flyer could possibly get on to the
-scheme he had in mind. And he was desperate.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Six months in the Barnes City jail had been his sentence for the
-attempted tar-and-feather soirée, At the expiration of his term,
-three days before, he had been left under no misapprehension as to
-whether his room was preferable to his company in Barnes City. He
-had drifted aimlessly toward the border, with vague plans of going
-into Mexico. A hundred dollars was his capital, and to his craven
-heart the future loomed dark--until that spry little old man, Bilney,
-who had boarded the train at Willett, made friends with him, and
-gave him an opportunity to recuperate his fortunes.
-
-George Bilney had prattled proudly during the whole
-seventy-five-mile trip from Willett. He kept a general store at
-Willett, though it was only a tiny station and his nearest customers
-lived six miles away. His main source of profit, however, was his
-ranch business. Six ranches, ranging from six to fifty thousand
-acres, did all their business with him, because of the convenience
-of having him do the buying, and because he kept a large and
-assorted stock from which a hurry call for anything from tools to
-feed or worm-salve could always be filled. Warehouses full of feed,
-tools, wire, lumber, provisions, and all the other supplies
-necessary for the modern ranch testified to the volume of his
-business. As a matter of fact, his store and its other buildings
-actually formed the so-called town of Willett.
-
-His daughter, home for her college vacation, his dead wife, his
-boyhood in New England--the little storekeeper had told it all to the
-sympathetic Buchanan, and among all the details one other thing,
-which had set that coyote’s heart to thumping as he heard it. For it
-appeared that most of the customers of the store paid their bills on
-the last day of the month--“It takes quick turnovers for cash to run
-my business,” Bilney had said. And the money was not sent to
-McMullen until the next morning, on the one daily train that ran
-south.
-
-Bilney had said that he was returning on the ten o’clock train that
-evening. Buchanan could slip into a berth, ride to the next station
-north of Willett, which was twenty-five miles, hire a horse, and
-ride back in the evening of the next day. Bilney had given him a
-cordial invitation to drop in for a meal at any time.
-
-It would be absurdly simple. If the money was in a safe, he could
-force the old man to open it; then bind up him and his daughter, cut
-the telephone wires, perhaps leave a note on the front of the store
-saying that the owner would not be back until next day, to give him
-twelve hours’ respite. In that time, by hard riding on the excellent
-saddle-horse that Bilney had bought for his daughter, Buchanan could
-make the border. Then for an easy life in Mexico.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Bilney, on the next evening, was reading the San Antonio _Express_
-by the light of a big white-shaded kerosene lamp, while Cissy, the
-huge negro woman who was his housekeeper, prepared supper. On the
-other side of the table a tall girl with a mass of black hair and a
-sweet face, was fondling a bull-terrier puppy.
-
-Buchanan paused outside the window and took in the scene. The old
-man lived in the rear of his store, which was now closed, so
-Buchanan knocked on the back door.
-
-Bilney opened it, and for a moment peered nearsightedly through his
-glasses, set half-way down his nose.
-
-“Well, well, come right in, my boy. How did you get up here so
-quick?” he said.
-
-“I got me a job at the Blackburne ranch to-day, and I just thought
-I’d drop in t’ say howdy,” returned Buchanan, entering hesitantly.
-
-“Glad to see you. Company’s scarce around here. Meet my daughter
-Judith--Cal Buchanan, Judith.”
-
-Judith’s voice had the musical slowness of the South. Bilney set out
-cigars. Buchanan, ill at ease and in a nervous tremor, refused both
-and talked infrequently. He found it hard to meet the tranquil eyes
-of the girl; he devoted most of his attention to her father, who
-talked enough for all three.
-
-The little sitting-room was cozy and homelike in the soft light of
-the lamp. The flat tints of the wall and the selection of prints and
-furniture showed a taste that gave subtle individuality to the room.
-Without knowing the exact reason for it, his surroundings increased
-Buchanan’s discomfort.
-
-Supper--Judith called it dinner--was an ordeal. Bilney wore a coat
-over his flannel shirt and black bow-tie, and Judith’s white frock
-contrasted with Buchanan’s dirty vest and flannel shirt, open at the
-scrawny neck. A snowy table-cloth, simple silverware--all were
-foreign to his usual surroundings. Finally Judith succeeded in
-drawing some halting conversation from him on the subject of horses.
-She was a typical Texas girl in her love of riding. Occasionally he
-felt her large eyes resting on him, and felt the goose-flesh start
-on his body. Somehow or other, she seemed a bigger obstacle to him
-than her spry little father. The negress added to the complications
-somewhat, but not too greatly. He strove to steady himself by
-thinking of what the successful culmination of his enterprise would
-mean to him.
-
-The meal over, he sat in the sitting-room hour after hour, unable to
-launch his offensive. When Bilney insisted on his spending the night
-with them, he accepted like a drowning man grasping at a plank. He
-forgot the value of time as he convinced himself that with the
-household asleep he would have greater chances for success.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-At ten-thirty Buchanan huskily announced his desire for sleep. His
-host showed him his room, which opened off the sitting-room, as did
-his own room and Judith’s. The store was reached through a passage
-from the living-room, which skirted the store office and opened
-directly into the passageway between two counters. His last mental
-picture was that of Judith kissing her father good night.
-
-Without undressing, he threw himself across the spotless white
-spread and stared at the ceiling. Through the open window came the
-drone of myriad insects, and the almost inaudible scratch of
-hundreds of them up and down the screen. The slight gulf breeze
-ruffled the mesquit trees outside, and occasionally the yelp of a
-coyote came to his ears.
-
-How long he had waited he did not know; but when he finally removed
-his boots and stole out into the dark living-room, lamp in hand, it
-seemed as if an eternity had passed. He meant to reconnoiter a bit.
-With all the yellow heart of him he hoped that he might get the
-money and go without the necessity of binding Bilney and the two
-women, or of compelling the old man to tell him where the money was.
-
-With a hand that shook so that the chimney rattled, he set the lamp
-down on the battered table in the office.
-
-He drew a pair of cutters from his shirt and quickly snipped the
-telephone wires. The snap of a board beneath his feet nearly caused
-him to drop the tool.
-
-This accomplished, his small eyes darted around swiftly. The table,
-a closed roll-top desk with a battered swivel-chair, and a heap of
-old pasteboard boxes and circulars in a corner of the tiny room
-represented the only furnishings. Apparently there was no safe.
-
-He tiptoed to the window and pulled the wrinkled green shade to the
-bottom. He tried the top of the desk, and it rolled up obediently.
-Within was a small metal box, locked with a hasp and a small
-padlock.
-
-He gasped with relief. His first impulse was to grab the strong-box
-and run. With an effort he resisted the temptation. He must make
-sure that the money was there.
-
-He wiped his moist palms on his overalls, and vainly tried to
-control the tremors that shook him. He took out the heavy cutters,
-with the idea of using them as a lever in an attempt to break the
-box. He was just starting to insert them below the hasp when padding
-footsteps came to his ears.
-
-An exclamation that was like a sob burst from his ashen lips as he
-turned, his fingers gripped around the instrument in his hands. Dim
-against the blackness of the open door, because of the lamp between,
-he saw the scraggly white hair and peering eyes of Bilney. A
-trembling revolver flashed close to the door-jamb.
-
-Blindly, unthinkingly, Buchanan leaped forward and swung. He was in
-an ecstasy of terror. The report of the wild shot echoed like
-thunder an instant before his weapon sank in the skull of the
-trembling old man. He dropped, limply horrible. The revolver crashed
-to the floor.
-
-“Daddy!”
-
-Swiftly flying footsteps up the passage came to his ears like the
-approach of some avenging fate. He met the girl as she burst through
-the doorway. His hand closed over her mouth. Her anguished eyes
-blazed into his.
-
-[Illustration: He met the girl as she burst through the doorway, her
-anguished eyes blazed into his and for a moment she seemed petrified
-with terror.]
-
-He was conscious, through his trance of fear and horror, of screams
-rising eerily through the night. He took his hand from her mouth
-long enough to rip out her silken sleeve, stuff it into her mouth,
-and bind it there with his bandana.
-
-She came to herself then, and fought like a wildcat as he tried to
-bind her hands and feet. It was half a minute before he succeeded.
-
-He did not wait to bind her feet, but hurried back toward those
-screams, careless of the blackness of the passageway. He ran into
-the table in the dining-room, and blundered toward the kitchen. The
-screams rose in a crescendo of utter terror as he approached.
-
-Moonlight filtered through the windows of the tiny bedroom, and by
-its dim illumination he could see the whites of staring eyes in the
-corner behind the bed. He jerked the gibbering old negro to her feet
-and his fist crashed to her jaw. He ripped and tore at the
-bed-sheets like a wild man, finally securing strips that answered
-for a gag and strands to secure arms and legs.
-
-He ran back to the office, to fall over the prone body of the old
-man. He rolled away from it as if from some living menace. He
-scrambled to his feet, his breath coming in labored gasps, and
-turned toward Judith, whom he had flung in the chair before the
-desk. She was limp, her face still set in lines that seemed frozen
-in agony. He finished his task of binding her.
-
-With the cash-box in his arms, Buchanan fled. It was the work of a
-moment to enter the small corral, fling the saddle that hung in the
-shed on the back of Judith’s saddle-horse, and mount.
-
-The whispering mesquit was the voice of phantom pursuers, the
-solitude terrible.
-
-He galloped to the little shack depot, and let himself in by
-smashing a window. The moon-rays through a window gave enough light
-to enable him to smash the telegraph instruments and the telephone.
-
-Then, without food or water, he set off at a wild gallop southward.
-His convulsed face was twisted backward over his shoulder as if he
-expected the blurred buildings behind him to give forth some avenger
-to follow him through the shadows reaching for him from every side.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Captain Perkins was sprawled in the swinging hammock on the porch of
-the recreation building, puffing deliberately at a short pipe. It
-was a little after ten o’clock in the evening. Presently the sheriff
-happened along.
-
-The lean-faced, square-jawed commanding officer was wrestling with
-some of the problems that his new detail had brought him.
-Transferred from the engineers a few months before, he had found
-that flyers bore little resemblance to the correct young West
-Pointers he had known in the infantry and the engineers. And his
-first detail as a commanding officer, he admitted frankly to
-himself, had him guessing.
-
-“I ain’t been around the border cavalry since Washington crossed the
-Delaware for nothin’,” the Sheriff advised him. “Cap’n, in my
-judgment, you got to figger this here Air Service as different from
-any other. Course, I may be jest a foolish old-timer which ought to
-o’ passed out quiet and decent a matter o’ ten years ago, but this
-here bunch o’ yours, and the other boys from down Laredo and Marfa
-way that I run into, have kinda sneaked under my hide. By and large,
-the idee o’ these planes spannin’ the border from California to the
-Gulf o’ Mexico, risin’ out o’ little cleared spots in the Big Bend
-and out there in Arizona, and these boys flyin’ ’em over them El
-Paso mountains and the deserts and this Godforsaken strip of
-mesquit, riskin’ their lives every minute they’re in the air--it’s
-kind o’ doggone romantic to even an old sand-rat like me.
-
-“And rememberin’ the times when fellers like Sam Edwards, which is
-now fat and a mayor and washes his neck regular, was r’arin’
-youngsters ridin’ down main streets drunk and shootin’, and
-rememberin’ what true-blue buddies and real hombres they was, makes
-me judge your boys in the same class.
-
-“And listen, son: the old days in this country meant that a man had
-to have guts or go under. Because they was men ridin’ the range and
-maintainin’ their necks as good as new by their own gun-play, the
-same red blood which showed in them things was responsible for
-what’s known now as the old ‘wild West’ stuff.
-
-“I reckon your boys are pioneers, Cap’n. To my notion, any man that
-picks this here flyin’ as a profession ain’t ever goin’ to get no
-kick out of a ten-cent-limit poker game. Where would yore Air
-Service be if the men in it was playin’ things safe?”
-
-He raised his voice at the last words, for the brooding silence of
-the night was shattered by the rolling explosions of a motor.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Spear’s battered roadster shot down the road, its huge headlights
-probing the darkness. It swooped around the sharp corner with
-breath-taking speed, stopped with startling celerity, and died into
-silence. The flyer strolled toward the porch, peering briefly at the
-two occupants thereof.
-
-“Hello,” he greeted them briefly, as he sank on the steps. “I want
-to inquire about the ringleader of that Barnes City tar-and-feather
-party I saw get off the train yesterday afternoon. Tall,
-hungry-looking guy with a long mustache.”
-
-“Name o’ Buchanan?” asked Trowbridge interestedly.
-
-“I don’t remember his name, but it wasn’t Buchanan then--at least,
-not in his home town. He must have just got out of the lock-up.”
-
-“I met the individual referred to yesterday--Pappy George Bilney
-introduced him to me. They ’peared to have struck up considerable of
-a friendship on the way down,” the Sheriff said slowly. “I ain’t
-seen this feller around the town to-day, neither. Prob’ly George
-told him all his secrets, too, on the way down. He never has learnt
-that there’s bad men runnin’ around the border. I’ve often thought
-of what a good chance fer a robbery George’s emporium was, ’way off
-by itself thataway. By Godfrey, to-day’s the first o’ the month,
-too. I believe I’ll mosey up to see George and Judy t’morrer.” The
-Sheriff turned to Captain Perkins. “Cap’n, how about one o’ the boys
-flyin’ me up to Willett t’morrer? I shore am anxious to git up that
-way.”
-
-The commanding officer readily assented.
-
-“Thanks, Cap’n,” returned Trowbridge. “Sleepy, I ain’t noticed you
-rushin’ forward to offer yore services as chauffeur--”
-
-“Oh, I’ll be tickled pink,” yawned Sleepy.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Helmet and goggles in hand, Sleepy, the next morning, made his way
-to the line, where a huge figure interestedly watched the efforts of
-the mechanics.
-
-“Mornin’!” came the jovial hail of Trowbridge.
-
-Sleepy nodded. The big twelve-cylinder Liberty increased its roar as
-the sergeant shoved the throttle wide open. The men, holding each
-wing and the tail, buckled to their work as the whirring propeller
-pulled the wheels against the blocks with seemingly irresistible
-force.
-
-Slowly the drum of the mighty cylinders tapered off as the mechanics
-drew back the throttle. Spears adjusted helmet and goggles, and then
-helped in the Sheriff, who looked like an old eagle.
-
-One of the mechanics saw to it that the belt was safely snapped
-around him while Sleepy took a look at his instruments from beneath
-drooping eyelids. The air-pressure was two and a half and the
-oil-pressure a safe thirty. Quick trials of each switch proved that
-both sets of plugs were working perfectly. Temperature 70
-Centigrade, voltmeter charging, gasoline pet-cocks switched on the
-main tank, horizontal stabilizer at neutral--the maze of wheels and
-instruments and pet-cocks and pumps that filled the cock-pit made a
-connected story which his drowsy eyes read effortlessly.
-
-He glanced back at the Sheriff, who filled the rear cock-pit to
-overflowing. The Sheriff waved a puffy arm to signify his readiness
-to depart.
-
-At Sleepy’s nod, the mechanics pulled the blocks from the wheels,
-and then swarmed at the edge of the left wing, holding it back while
-Sleepy turned the De Haviland around with full gun and left rudder
-on as far as it would go. Without stopping for a moment, he
-neutralized his rudder, shoved the stick forward, and in a moment
-was scudding across the field with accelerating speed. The pilot sat
-carelessly, his right arm draped restfully on the padded cowling
-that rimmed the cock-pit.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-Without any reason at all, he gave the ship right rudder, and it
-swerved to the right; then left rudder, and a quick left turn was
-the result. In a moment the ground sank below them; then Sleepy
-banked carelessly, his lower wing barely three feet above the
-ground. Then a left bank, combined with a mild zoom, and the
-thirty-four-hundred-pound ship lifted over the hangars on the
-western edge of the field in a climbing turn, seeming literally to
-graze the sides, so close was it.
-
-The pilot looked back with a slow grin, to see Sheriff Trowbridge
-holding to the cowling as if the force of his grip might make some
-difference.
-
-“He flies too casual-like,” was Trowbridge’s judgment, before he
-lost himself in the joy of the rushing air. The flat, misty earth
-was now five hundred feet below them as they circled the airdrome.
-
-Sleepy pulled back the throttle until the tachometer showed fifteen
-hundred revolutions a minute, and wheeled the stabilizer forward a
-trifle until the ship rode level. By means of the stabilizer a ship
-can be made nose or tail heavy by changing the angle of the two flat
-surfaces on the tail.
-
-A quick glance at the many little glass-covered gauges before him
-showed that everything was all right. The ship rode the smooth, cool
-morning air buoyantly, and by the time it had made one circle of the
-field had reached a thousand feet. Sleepy threw it into a vertical
-bank, and in a moment the railroad was in sight, leading northward
-through the mesquit.
-
-He hunched down farther in the seat, until the great motor ahead of
-him shut off all forward vision. His right arm rested limply on the
-cowling, and his feet were propped comfortably on the rudder-bar.
-The car-shattering roar of the Liberty was as soothing as a lullaby
-to his accustomed ears. He did not vouchsafe a glance at the
-receding ground below. He settled down for the forty-minute trip as
-if in an automobile.
-
-Sheriff Trowbridge was in the seventh heaven. The billowing mesquit,
-fading into dim nothingness twenty miles away, the rush of the air,
-the speed with which familiar landmarks were picked up and left
-behind, all represented the greatest thrill the veteran had ever
-experienced in his variegated career.
-
-The southeast wind blowing from the Gulf of Mexico was slightly
-stronger than usual, and in thirty-five minutes the Sheriff glimpsed
-the clearing that represented Willett. The sun had burned away the
-ground-mist, and each tiny tree and weather-stained railroad-tie
-stood out plainly in the clear golden air. He shook the stick in the
-back seat--the usual signal from cock-pit to cock-pit. Sleepy, who
-had been sitting as motionless as an image, did not immediately take
-cognizance of the signal. Not until the Sheriff had actually caused
-the ship to wabble with the force of his hand on the stick did the
-pilot turn his heavy-lidded eyes backward. Trowbridge unthinkingly
-threw out an arm to point. The combined force of the propeller blast
-and a hundred and twenty miles an hour of speed knocked it backward
-with painful suddenness; but Sleepy understood.
-
-The tiny station and the store warehouses and corral, with the
-barely discernible road leading past the store and to the station,
-labeled their destination plainly. The clearing skirted the road on
-the south side, and appeared to be about four hundred yards long and
-a hundred yards wide.
-
-Sleepy cut the motor to thirteen hundred and fifty revolutions, and
-as he nosed down, the speedometer jumped to a hundred and
-thirty-five miles an hour. In a shallow spiral he circled the field,
-dropping down to twenty-five hundred. Then he nosed upward and
-banked smoothly to the left, jamming on full right rudder as the big
-ship tilted. It shot downward on the tip of the left wing in a
-wicked side-slip. Trowbridge grabbed his goggles to keep them from
-blowing sideways, and strove to get his breath and conquer that
-sinking sensation in his stomach. In a moment the nose dropped, and
-in a smooth wing-turn the ship zoomed upward again and banked to the
-right. Another side-slip to the right, and they were down to fifteen
-hundred feet.
-
-With a somewhat strained smile twisting his lips, the Sheriff
-watched Sleepy handle his ship. The flyer’s eyes rested steadily on
-the field below, and he seemed to fly instinctively. Alternately to
-the right and left, the roaring ship dropped downward. At five
-hundred feet Sleepy gave it full gun and flashed across the field
-for a last look. It appeared to be a close-cut hayfield, with no
-particular obstacle except a shallow ditch cutting diagonally across
-the northeast corner.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The ship swept out of the slip barely a foot above the ground, and
-sped across the ground with quickly decreasing speed. For a
-split-second it seemed to hover, and at the instant Sleepy jerked
-the stick back. Came the crunch of the tail skid and the rumble of
-the wheels on the ground in a perfect three-point landing. Most
-people do not know that alongside a perfect landing most of the
-thrilling acrobatic flying they “oh” and “ah” is child’s play.
-
-The big plane stopped rolling a hundred yards short of the end of
-the field, and Sleepy promptly turned off the gas pet-cock, to allow
-the motor to run itself out of gas. By this method damaging backfire
-in the expensive, fragile motor would be impossible. In a moment the
-Liberty sputtered and died, and the seven-foot propeller came to
-rest. He clicked off the switches and released the air-pressure.
-
-“You use these things right careless-like,” came the Sheriff’s
-voice, vague because ear-drums were still humming from the roar of
-the motor.
-
-The pilot unstrapped himself, climbed out, and leaned restfully
-against the trailing edge of a wing while he set fire to a cigarette
-and watched the Sheriff release himself from his belt and climb out.
-
-“Funny there ain’t nobody out to greet us,” remarked Trowbridge.
-“Let’s mosey over to the emporium.” The front door was closed; and
-there was not a sign of life. They went to the back door, and the
-Sheriff knocked without result. He tried the door experimentally,
-and it opened.
-
-“I don’t quite get the lay,” said Trowbridge, as he led Spears into
-the sitting-room. “O George! You lazy old counter-jumper, where be
-yuh?”
-
-A muffled cry came to them from the store. Without a word,
-Trowbridge lumbered swiftly up the passageway that led to the store,
-Spears behind him.
-
-“Great God!” breathed the Sheriff, as he reached the office door.
-Almost before the words were out of his mouth, Sleepy was peering
-over his shoulder at the gruesome tableau.
-
-The body of Bilney he almost forgot for the moment, as he met the
-tearless, burning eyes of the girl, eery above the gag-bandage that
-covered her face. Trowbridge dropped to his knees beside the body of
-his friend. With a catlike leap, Spears hurdled the body and ripped
-at the girl’s bonds. Her large eyes gave him the creeps--they seemed
-like the only part of her alive.
-
-“He’s still alive,” said Trowbridge, with ominous calmness, as he
-arose. “Judy girl, what happened?”
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-For a moment the girl neither moved nor spoke. Sleepy stood quietly
-beside her, his narrowed eyes watching the girl unwinkingly, as cold
-as the glint of sunlight on ice.
-
-Then, in lifeless tones, the girl told the story while Trowbridge
-gently wiped her father’s wound with his bandana. As her story
-unfolded, her low-pitched voice grew louder. Suddenly the barriers
-of her artificial repression gave way. With a heart-rending cry, she
-threw herself on the body of her father. Her hands caressed his
-thin, blood-stained gray hair, and her lips were pressed to his
-withered cheek.
-
-“I’m gittin’ some water,” said Trowbridge slowly, and disappeared.
-
-Without speaking, Sleepy went into the store and caught up a
-blanket. He returned, and wrapped it round the girl in her torn
-nightgown. Then he put one arm under her and gently raised her to
-her feet as the Sheriff returned with a basin of water. Spears led
-the sobbing girl to a chair.
-
-In silence broken only by the girl’s weeping, Trowbridge washed and
-bound the wound. Then he slowly got to his feet, his mahogany face a
-mask from which two thin slits flashed wrath that was terrible in
-its all-consuming force.
-
-“I’d die happy the minute after I’d shot the skunk that did this,”
-he rasped, his face working suddenly.
-
-“If you’ll shoot as you never shot before, maybe you can get him,”
-said Spears, the timbre of his voice subtly different. “Listen. This
-Buchanan would make for the border, wouldn’t he?”
-
-“Uh-huh.”
-
-“If it wasn’t for leaving Miss Judith and her father here alone--”
-
-The Sheriff comprehended the generalities of Spears’s plan
-immediately. He whirled on Judith.
-
-“Where’s Cissy, Judy?” he asked.
-
-“I--I don’t know. She----”
-
-Trowbridge plunged down the passageway. In a moment he returned,
-leading the half-dead old negress.
-
-“Listen, Judy; you say you heard Buchanan take your horse?”
-
-The girl nodded, her face hidden in her arms.
-
-“Cissy, you take care o’ Mr. Bilney. Judy girl, get yoreself
-together and ride Buchanan’s horse to the nearest telephone. ’Phone
-the airdrome at McMullen, and tell ’em to send Doc Spurgin up here
-by ship to tend to yore daddy--I believe the doc can save him. Spears
-and I’ll take after this coyote, and mebbe we can find him.”
-
-He looked at Spears, and for the first time noticed the change in
-him. Glowing eyes, body like a coiled spring--he gave an impression
-of leashed power waiting eagerly to be unbound.
-
-“Let’s be about it,” he said briefly.
-
-Together, as gently as possible, they lifted Mr. Bilney’s
-unconscious form and carried it to his room.
-
-“Git dressed and start, Judy; we’ll see that the horse is ready,”
-said the Sheriff. “We’re on our way.”
-
-“Oh, I hope you get him!” the girl said passionately. She seemed
-ablaze as she stood there, a statue of vengeance personified.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-The horse was in the corral, unsaddled. It was the work of a moment
-for the Sheriff to saddle him. Meanwhile Sleepy made for the ship
-with long strides.
-
-He climbed into the cock-pit, and without a single lost motion
-turned on the gas, set the air-pump, and rapidly pumped up the air
-to three pounds. This done, he adjusted the priming pet-cock and
-sent three stiff shots of gasoline into the cylinders. As Trowbridge
-came lumbering across the field, Sleepy was twirling the propeller.
-The effortless ease with which he overcame the compression of the
-big motor and the weight of the heavy stick would have been an
-eye-opener to some of Spears’s best friends.
-
-“Ready, son?” bellowed Trowbridge.
-
-“Just about. Here’s the scheme. He’ll probably stay pretty close to
-the railroad in order to keep a straight course for the border,
-won’t he?”
-
-The puffing representative of the law nodded.
-
-“Keep a close watch. If we spot him, I’ll go low and stall the ship.
-When it hovers for a minute, shoot. I believe you can hit. It’ll be
-ticklish work, Sheriff. I may not be able to catch the ship again
-after the stall.”
-
-“What do I care?” Trowbridge burst forth.
-
-“I didn’t think you would. How can we make sure when we’ve found our
-man?” asked Spears.
-
-“I’d know Judy’s pony anywhere,” declared the old man truculently.
-
-Without another word, Sleepy went back to the cock-pit and snapped
-on the switches.
-
-“I’ll pull you--I’m more used to this cranking than you are.”
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-As the Sheriff set himself with one hand on the prop, Spears grasped
-his other wrist with both of his hands. In time to the count, the
-two men swung backward and forward, without moving the propeller
-until “Three!”
-
-With all his strength, Spears jerked the Sheriff away from the
-stick. The huge body actually left the ground under the power of the
-pilot’s pull. The Liberty caught, and Spears leaped for the cock-pit
-to advance the spark and throttle until there was no danger of the
-motor dying.
-
-Trowbridge removed his cover-alls, literally tearing them off in his
-haste. His inseparable companions, the two big six-shooters, came
-into view, their pearl butts protruding from the swinging holsters.
-By the time Spears had strapped himself in and had begun to run the
-motor up in a quick warm-up, his passenger was ready.
-
-When the temperature-gauge showed 60 Centigrade, the flyer glanced
-back. The Sheriff was standing up, peering at the instruments over
-his shoulder. For a second two pairs of gleaming eyes met in
-wordless appraisal. To the old man the devil that danced behind the
-cold sheen of the pilot’s eyes meant many things. In that moment was
-born an understanding which went deeper than mutual participation in
-the coming venture--it was a revealment of the fundamentals in the
-younger man’s make-up.
-
-Without a word Spears turned and gave the De Haviland the gun. It
-skidded around in a close circle, and then with the ever-increasing
-roar of the Liberty sped across the field on its mission.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-At two thousand feet they had a clear radius of vision of ten miles.
-The tachometer showed seventeen hundred revolutions a minute as with
-wide-open motor the ship drove toward the border at a hundred and
-twenty miles an hour. Ceaselessly two pairs of eyes searched the
-far-flung desert of mesquit below, striving to spot the figure of a
-horseman.
-
-Spears figured that, provided Judith’s estimate of time was correct,
-Buchanan would have covered about forty miles. She thought that the
-crime had been committed about one o’clock. He was flying a few
-miles west of the railroad, in the belief that his prey would strike
-a straight course for the border. With all his heart the grim-faced
-pilot hoped that they might find him. Time after time the tableau in
-the barren little office arose before his eyes, momentarily blotting
-out the flat green panorama below. With every fiber of him he craved
-personal vengeance--the opportunity to wreak punishment on the man
-who had left a girl bound and gagged to watch over her all but dead
-father.
-
-Twenty minutes out, both men redoubled the minute care with which
-they searched the ground, which was like a painted curtain half a
-mile below. It was Trowbridge who suddenly grasped the stick and
-rocked the ship back and forth exultantly.
-
-Spears turned and his eyes followed the Sheriff’s pointing finger.
-Sure enough, there was a mounted man crossing a tiny clearing, two
-or three miles to the westward. Without cutting his motor, Spears
-nosed down.
-
-Struts vibrated madly, and wires shrilled to the terrific speed of
-the ship as it darted earthward. Little by little, Spears shot
-downward in a tight spiral, the pivot point of which was the now
-galloping figure below. Like some prehistoric monster circling for a
-kill, the De Haviland roared earthward.
-
-[Illustration: Little by little, Spears shot downward toward the
-galloping figure below]
-
-As he reduced the motor revolutions to a thousand, Spears frequently
-jazzed the throttle to keep the spark-plugs from fouling with oil.
-In a moment he would need every bit of the Liberty’s four hundred
-and fifty horsepower--and need it without a second’s delay on the
-motor’s part.
-
-At two hundred feet, half a mile back of Buchanan, who was now
-invisible, Spears shoved the throttle wide open. The motor sputtered
-a moment, and then caught. The ship hurtled across the mesquit like
-a drab brown comet. The sensation of speed so close to the ground
-was tremendous. In a few seconds they flashed across a wildly
-galloping horse carrying a man whose upturned face was a smudge of
-white.
-
-Spears, hunched down behind the wind shield, turned his head and
-glanced inquiringly at his passenger. Trowbridge nodded violently.
-
-Spears banked so suddenly that it threw the Sheriff against the side
-of his cock-pit. The De Haviland swept around to the left, mushing
-slightly because of its terrific speed. Sleepy kept it nosed down
-until it was scraping the tops of the mesquit trees as he
-straightened out once more.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-A hundred yards back of the fleeing Buchanan, he cut the gun. The
-ship swept on with decreasing speed. A few yards behind the man on
-the ground, its speed was seventy-five miles an hour. Trowbridge,
-fighting the wind-blast, was standing up, both guns in his hands.
-
-Then Sleepy took his chance. He nosed up, banking to the right at
-the same time. For a second the airplane hovered, right wing down,
-above its prey. Each of Trowbridge’s guns spoke twice. Like a flash,
-Sleepy rammed the throttle full on, glimpsing the fall of the horse
-below out of the corner of his eyes.
-
-The fouled plugs did not catch immediately, and the infinitesimal
-delay was fatal. The ship, being so low and having lost flying
-speed, could not stay in the air any longer, and there was not
-altitude enough to pull out. In that split-second Sleepy had an
-opportunity, however, to do what he had planned all along if he did
-not win his gamble--for he had never planned that the grizzled
-old-timer in the back seat should take his full share of the flying
-chances.
-
-Banked as it was, full top rudder would have dashed the ship into
-the ground on its side, and the Sheriff would have borne the brunt
-of the crash. Instead, Sleepy shoved the stick forward as far as it
-would go. With his arm thrown in front of his face, he rammed the
-ship into the ground. Wings sheered off on trees, and then came a
-stupendous crash that marked the cessation of consciousness for the
-pilot.
-
-Trowbridge, stunned as his head was dashed against the front cowling
-of the cock-pit, found himself lying on his side in the middle of a
-twisted mass that represented the broken fuselage. He struggled
-weakly, and then sank back with a groan. Apparently his collar-bone
-was broken, and his right arm for some reason would not function.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-He fumbled at the belt dazedly, and succeeded in freeing himself.
-Bit by bit, he crawled out of the débris, looking around for Spears.
-As he dragged himself out, the spat of a revolver sounded, and the
-whine of a bullet past his head made him duck so suddenly that he
-nearly fainted with the pain.
-
-He peered toward the place where the shot had apparently come from,
-shielded from sight by the wreckage. Fifty yards away was the
-carcass of the dead horse, and even as he looked a man’s head lifted
-itself above the body. Trowbridge snaked his way the few inches to
-the remains of the cock-pit, and was rewarded with a shot that
-drilled through the débris just beside him. He found one of his
-guns, jammed between two twisted longerons. As his groping hand
-grasped it, a searing pain in his left leg seemed to come
-simultaneously with the crack of another shot.
-
-It was a moment before his will proved superior to the physical
-weakness that all but overpowered him. Then he started to crawl,
-with infinite pains, the foot necessary to reach a point of vantage.
-Through the twisted wreckage he peered with bloodshot eyes, his
-sixshooter in his left hand.
-
-[Illustration: Trowbridge’s right arm was wounded. With infinite
-pains, he crawled out, his revolver in his left hand.]
-
-In two minutes he was rewarded. Once again Buchanan’s head protruded
-slightly from his barricade. Trowbridge sighted, this time, his gun
-resting on a piece of shattered ash. With all the remnants of his
-strength, he forced himself to be careful. When the gun spoke,
-Buchanan’s head dropped limply on the horse.
-
-It took the Sheriff two hours to bind the flesh wound in his leg and
-release Spears. The pilot was lying half under the motor, which had
-been jammed part way through the fuselage, leaving barely a foot of
-clearance between itself and the back of the pilot’s seat. One of
-Spears’s legs was caught under it, and an unnaturally bent arm told
-its own story. Trowbridge did not succeed in bringing him back to
-consciousness before he himself tumbled over in the blazing heat of
-the Texas sun. Above, three vultures hovered curiously.
-
-                 *       *       *       *       *
-
-At ten-thirty in the morning, when no word had come of the ship’s
-safe arrival at Willett, every plane at McMullen, except the two on
-patrol, was ordered out on the search. Jimmy Jennings found the
-wreck. From that time on, a ship was constantly hovering over the
-spot to guide the ground party. It was ten o’clock at night when Tex
-MacDowell’s De Haviland, equipped with wing-lights, brought the
-rescue expedition to the crash. The men were brought back to
-McMullen on a special engine and caboose furnished by the little
-jerkwater railroad.
-
-Spears came to briefly at the start of the trip, and did not wake up
-again until the next afternoon, when he found himself in the
-McMullen hospital, with Sheriff Trowbridge--none of whose bones had
-been broken--sitting beside his bed, and Captain Perkins standing at
-the foot. In a moment Major Searles, the flight surgeon, came in
-with the hospital physician.
-
-“Welcome back,” grinned the Sheriff.
-
-“Glad to be here,” returned Sleepy weakly. “Doc, what’s ailing me?”
-
-“Three broken ribs, a broken leg, and compound fracture of the right
-arm,” replied the hospital man briskly. “We can fix you up as good
-as new.”
-
-“Outside of that, I’m all right, eh?” yawned the pilot “Did you get
-Buchanan, Sheriff?”
-
-“In two parts,” stated the Sheriff. “Polished off the job after we
-landed. Bilney is comin’ along O.K. He and Judith are over to my
-house. She says she’s aimin’ to be an assistant nurse for you soon’s
-her daddy gets better.”
-
-Sleepy’s square face lightened with a slow smile.
-
-“What’s a few broken arms and legs compared to that prospect?” he
-queried gently. His eyelids dropped farther, and in a moment he was
-asleep again. The four men tiptoed out. Trowbridge stopped at the
-door and looked back on the tousled hair and tranquil face of the
-flyer.
-
-“I think I’ll get to understand a lot of things better down here if
-the border continues like this,” said the commanding officer.
-
-The Sheriff closed the door gently.
-
-“Well,” he drawled, “it is a fine place to git a valuation on real
-hombres.”
-
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-  <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sky Sheriff, by Thomson Burtis</title>
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-<body>
-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The sky sheriff, by Thomas Burtis</p>
-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
-at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
-are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this eBook.
-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The sky sheriff</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>The pioneer spirit lives again in the Texas Airplane Patrol</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Burtis</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: B. J. Rosenmeyer</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 11, 2022 [eBook #68498]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Roger Frank and Sue Clark</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SKY SHERIFF ***</div>
-<div class='section'>
-<div class='ce'>
-<h1>The Sky Sheriff</h1>
-<div style='margin-bottom:0.5em;'>The Pioneer Spirit Lives Again in the Texas Airplane Patrol </div>
-<div style='font-size:1.2em;margin-bottom:0.5em;'>By Thomson Burtis </div>
-<div>Illustrations by B. J. Rosenmeyer </div>
-</div>
-<blockquote>
-<p style='text-indent:0'>[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April 1923 issue of
-<i>Blue Book Magazine</i>.]</p>
-
-</blockquote>
-<div id='ifpc' class='mt01 mb01 wifpc'>
-  <img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' />
-  <p class='caption'>Sure enough, there was a mounted man crossing a tiny clearing, two or three miles to the westward</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-<div>
-<p>The blazing sun of a Texas afternoon turned air and drab brown earth
-to gold. Not a breath stirred the huge white stocking that served as
-a wind-indicator on the airdrome of the McMullen Flight of the Air
-Service border patrol.</p>
-
-<p>Seven men were standing in a line south of the airdrome. Six of them
-were tanned young chaps with the look of the open in their steady
-eyes with tiny sun-crinkles at the corners. The other man wore a
-flowing gray mustache, a sombrero that dwarfed the others’ Stetsons,
-and ornately embossed cowboy boots. He was known from one end of the
-Rio Grande to the other as Sheriff Bill Trowbridge.</p>
-
-<p>A low drone came to the ears of the group, and far in the distance
-they glimpsed the tiny form of a ship, diving with motor on for the
-airdrome. Hickman looked up at the plane.</p>
-
-<p>“Probably Tex MacDowell and Sleepy Spears.”</p>
-
-<p>“Who’s Spears?” asked Trowbridge.</p>
-
-<p>“New man from the Air Service Mechanics’ School at Donovan Field,”
-explained Perkins. “He’s the sleepiest-looking guy in the world.
-Yesterday Tex and Sleepy announced they were going to fly to Laredo,
-if I’d let ’em, and go over to the ‘Bee’ hangout in Nuevo Laredo,
-and either win a fortune or else get entirely broke.”</p>
-
-<p>Captain Perkins’s face was serious.</p>
-
-<p>Sheriff Trowbridge glanced at him sharply. Apparently there was
-somewhat of puzzlement, disapproval, in the new commanding officer’s
-words.</p>
-
-<p>Trowbridge was grinning widely. “Did yuh ever have any previous
-experience handlin’ wildcats?”</p>
-
-<p>Captain Perkins shook his head. “Live and learn, I guess,” said he.</p>
-
-<p>The ship circled northward, banked around toward the field, and the
-roaring motor ceased. Then the De Haviland dropped over the low
-fence that formed the northern boundary of the field. Waiting
-mechanics in front of a hangar seized the wings and helped bring the
-ship into the line.</p>
-
-<p>The two flyers climbed out of the cock-pits.</p>
-
-<p>“See that short fellow walking as if every step would be his last?”
-said Jennings. “That’s Sleepy.”</p>
-
-<p>Trowbridge smote his thigh.</p>
-
-<p>“I get yuh now,” he stated. “Isn’t Sleepy the hombre that had a
-run-in with some would-be bad men up in Barnes City a few months
-ago?”</p>
-
-<p>“He’s the one,” said Pop Cravath, wiping the sweat from his bald
-spot with a voluminous khaki handkerchief.</p>
-
-<p>Spears’ drooping eyelids were raised to look at the little group. A
-slow smile stretched the already wide mouth.</p>
-
-<p>“Meet Sheriff Trowbridge, Sleepy,” said Perkins.</p>
-
-<p>“Delighted. I’ve heard several mouthfuls about you, Sheriff,” said
-Sleepy.</p>
-
-<p>“Did you break the ‘Bee’?” inquired Trowbridge solemnly.</p>
-
-<p>“They took advantage of us,” sighed Sleepy. “They fed us Benedictine
-and Mescal. The last I remember was shooting two hundred at the
-crap-table and then bursting into ribald grief when two sixes turned
-up. We woke up in the alley alongside the Laredo House this
-morning.”</p>
-
-<p>Captain Perkins’s lean, square-jawed face was crossed with varying
-expressions of merriment, wonder, and disapproval. Apparently the
-Captain was completely puzzled—unable to understand the facets in
-his flyers’ characters.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ve got to meet the four-ten from San Antone,” said the Sheriff,
-suddenly. “My old friend George Bilney is comin’ in. Say, I’m going
-to bring George out here this evenin’, mebbe. He’s station agent and
-storekeeper up here at Willett. He’s only in town to the back train
-at ten, but he’s got a daughter you boys ought to meet. She’s the
-Queen of Sheba, and likewise the Lily of the Valley.”</p>
-
-<p>“That sure is interesting. You show us a way to meet her, Sheriff,
-and we’ll show ourselves grateful,” said Sleepy.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>That evening Sleepy Spears drove a dusty roadster down the main
-street of McMullen. He saw the train come in and saw the sheriff
-meet Pappy George Bilney, a little wisp of a white-bearded man.</p>
-
-<p>Sleepy then drew up to the curb in front of a drug store with a
-flourish and shut off the motor. As he turned to climb out, his gaze
-fell on the face of a tall, thin, stooping fellow with drooping
-brown mustachios. As if by some hypnotic influence, the stranger’s
-close-set eyes rose to meet the flyer’s gaze, then dropped. The man
-walked on.</p>
-
-<p>“That’s that foreman from Barnes City!” murmured Sleepy. “Must ’ave
-just got out of jail, if old man Shaler did what he said he was
-going to do after this bird’s scheme to tar and feather poor old
-Correll. I wonder what he might be doing here?”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>A like mental query regarding Spears was arousing fear in the mind
-of the “bird”—Cal Buchanan, as he called himself. For Cal Buchanan,
-being a coyote by nature instead of a wolf, had within the last few
-hours formulated a wolf’s plan to resuscitate his fallen fortunes,
-and when a coyote essays a wolf’s role he is likely to shy at a
-shadow.</p>
-
-<p>As he lounged along the lively street, his small eyes roved
-constantly, seeing nothing but mental images. Girls and women whose
-clothes would not have been out of place on the leading
-thoroughfares of the largest cities; trimly dressed men along with
-others in cowboy boots and flannel shirts; here a store window that
-might have been transplanted from Manhattan next to a display of
-ornate saddles and lariats; a five-thousand-dollar limousine passing
-a hitching-rack where drooping cow-ponies awaited their owners—all
-were vague to him as he remained immersed in his plans.</p>
-
-<p>Sleepy Spears had been farthest from his thoughts until the square,
-sunburnt countenance had appeared with all the effect of a sudden
-and unwelcome vision.</p>
-
-<p>His thoughts turned back to his experience with Spears six months
-before. While drunk, he had visited the Barnes City fair, where
-Spears and Al Johnson, from Donovan Field, were giving flying
-exhibitions. Then had come that row with Correll, Spears’s mechanic,
-and the dream of tar-and-feathering Correll with the help of three
-confederates.</p>
-
-<p>In a remote cabin the plan was working well, and the four men were
-just ready to strip Correll, when a human tornado in the form of
-Spears had burst in the door. From that time on, events were rather
-vague in Buchanan’s mind. Later he had learned that Spears, learning
-of the plot too late to overtake the hazing party by automobile, had
-made a parachute jump at night from Al Johnson’s airplane in order
-to reach Correll in time.</p>
-
-<p>Was there any possibility that Spears, recognizing him, could
-interfere with the scheme that he had in mind? Nervous as a cat, he
-finally arose, leaving his food, paid his check, and walked out.
-Spears or no Spears, his mind was made up. There did not seem to be
-any reason to believe that the flyer could possibly get on to the
-scheme he had in mind. And he was desperate.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Six months in the Barnes City jail had been his sentence for the
-attempted tar-and-feather soirée, At the expiration of his term,
-three days before, he had been left under no misapprehension as to
-whether his room was preferable to his company in Barnes City. He
-had drifted aimlessly toward the border, with vague plans of going
-into Mexico. A hundred dollars was his capital, and to his craven
-heart the future loomed dark—until that spry little old man, Bilney,
-who had boarded the train at Willett, made friends with him, and
-gave him an opportunity to recuperate his fortunes.</p>
-
-<p>George Bilney had prattled proudly during the whole
-seventy-five-mile trip from Willett. He kept a general store at
-Willett, though it was only a tiny station and his nearest customers
-lived six miles away. His main source of profit, however, was his
-ranch business. Six ranches, ranging from six to fifty thousand
-acres, did all their business with him, because of the convenience
-of having him do the buying, and because he kept a large and
-assorted stock from which a hurry call for anything from tools to
-feed or worm-salve could always be filled. Warehouses full of feed,
-tools, wire, lumber, provisions, and all the other supplies
-necessary for the modern ranch testified to the volume of his
-business. As a matter of fact, his store and its other buildings
-actually formed the so-called town of Willett.</p>
-
-<p>His daughter, home for her college vacation, his dead wife, his
-boyhood in New England—the little storekeeper had told it all to the
-sympathetic Buchanan, and among all the details one other thing,
-which had set that coyote’s heart to thumping as he heard it. For it
-appeared that most of the customers of the store paid their bills on
-the last day of the month—“It takes quick turnovers for cash to run
-my business,” Bilney had said. And the money was not sent to
-McMullen until the next morning, on the one daily train that ran
-south.</p>
-
-<p>Bilney had said that he was returning on the ten o’clock train that
-evening. Buchanan could slip into a berth, ride to the next station
-north of Willett, which was twenty-five miles, hire a horse, and
-ride back in the evening of the next day. Bilney had given him a
-cordial invitation to drop in for a meal at any time.</p>
-
-<p>It would be absurdly simple. If the money was in a safe, he could
-force the old man to open it; then bind up him and his daughter, cut
-the telephone wires, perhaps leave a note on the front of the store
-saying that the owner would not be back until next day, to give him
-twelve hours’ respite. In that time, by hard riding on the excellent
-saddle-horse that Bilney had bought for his daughter, Buchanan could
-make the border. Then for an easy life in Mexico.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Bilney, on the next evening, was reading the San Antonio <i>Express</i>
-by the light of a big white-shaded kerosene lamp, while Cissy, the
-huge negro woman who was his housekeeper, prepared supper. On the
-other side of the table a tall girl with a mass of black hair and a
-sweet face, was fondling a bull-terrier puppy.</p>
-
-<p>Buchanan paused outside the window and took in the scene. The old
-man lived in the rear of his store, which was now closed, so
-Buchanan knocked on the back door.</p>
-
-<p>Bilney opened it, and for a moment peered nearsightedly through his
-glasses, set half-way down his nose.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, well, come right in, my boy. How did you get up here so
-quick?” he said.</p>
-
-<p>“I got me a job at the Blackburne ranch to-day, and I just thought
-I’d drop in t’ say howdy,” returned Buchanan, entering hesitantly.</p>
-
-<p>“Glad to see you. Company’s scarce around here. Meet my daughter
-Judith—Cal Buchanan, Judith.”</p>
-
-<p>Judith’s voice had the musical slowness of the South. Bilney set out
-cigars. Buchanan, ill at ease and in a nervous tremor, refused both
-and talked infrequently. He found it hard to meet the tranquil eyes
-of the girl; he devoted most of his attention to her father, who
-talked enough for all three.</p>
-
-<p>The little sitting-room was cozy and homelike in the soft light of
-the lamp. The flat tints of the wall and the selection of prints and
-furniture showed a taste that gave subtle individuality to the room.
-Without knowing the exact reason for it, his surroundings increased
-Buchanan’s discomfort.</p>
-
-<p>Supper—Judith called it dinner—was an ordeal. Bilney wore a coat
-over his flannel shirt and black bow-tie, and Judith’s white frock
-contrasted with Buchanan’s dirty vest and flannel shirt, open at the
-scrawny neck. A snowy table-cloth, simple silverware—all were
-foreign to his usual surroundings. Finally Judith succeeded in
-drawing some halting conversation from him on the subject of horses.
-She was a typical Texas girl in her love of riding. Occasionally he
-felt her large eyes resting on him, and felt the goose-flesh start
-on his body. Somehow or other, she seemed a bigger obstacle to him
-than her spry little father. The negress added to the complications
-somewhat, but not too greatly. He strove to steady himself by
-thinking of what the successful culmination of his enterprise would
-mean to him.</p>
-
-<p>The meal over, he sat in the sitting-room hour after hour, unable to
-launch his offensive. When Bilney insisted on his spending the night
-with them, he accepted like a drowning man grasping at a plank. He
-forgot the value of time as he convinced himself that with the
-household asleep he would have greater chances for success.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>At ten-thirty Buchanan huskily announced his desire for sleep. His
-host showed him his room, which opened off the sitting-room, as did
-his own room and Judith’s. The store was reached through a passage
-from the living-room, which skirted the store office and opened
-directly into the passageway between two counters. His last mental
-picture was that of Judith kissing her father good night.</p>
-
-<p>Without undressing, he threw himself across the spotless white
-spread and stared at the ceiling. Through the open window came the
-drone of myriad insects, and the almost inaudible scratch of
-hundreds of them up and down the screen. The slight gulf breeze
-ruffled the mesquit trees outside, and occasionally the yelp of a
-coyote came to his ears.</p>
-
-<p>How long he had waited he did not know; but when he finally removed
-his boots and stole out into the dark living-room, lamp in hand, it
-seemed as if an eternity had passed. He meant to reconnoiter a bit.
-With all the yellow heart of him he hoped that he might get the
-money and go without the necessity of binding Bilney and the two
-women, or of compelling the old man to tell him where the money was.</p>
-
-<p>With a hand that shook so that the chimney rattled, he set the lamp
-down on the battered table in the office.</p>
-
-<p>He drew a pair of cutters from his shirt and quickly snipped the
-telephone wires. The snap of a board beneath his feet nearly caused
-him to drop the tool.</p>
-
-<p>This accomplished, his small eyes darted around swiftly. The table,
-a closed roll-top desk with a battered swivel-chair, and a heap of
-old pasteboard boxes and circulars in a corner of the tiny room
-represented the only furnishings. Apparently there was no safe.</p>
-
-<p>He tiptoed to the window and pulled the wrinkled green shade to the
-bottom. He tried the top of the desk, and it rolled up obediently.
-Within was a small metal box, locked with a hasp and a small
-padlock.</p>
-
-<p>He gasped with relief. His first impulse was to grab the strong-box
-and run. With an effort he resisted the temptation. He must make
-sure that the money was there.</p>
-
-<p>He wiped his moist palms on his overalls, and vainly tried to
-control the tremors that shook him. He took out the heavy cutters,
-with the idea of using them as a lever in an attempt to break the
-box. He was just starting to insert them below the hasp when padding
-footsteps came to his ears.</p>
-
-<p>An exclamation that was like a sob burst from his ashen lips as he
-turned, his fingers gripped around the instrument in his hands. Dim
-against the blackness of the open door, because of the lamp between,
-he saw the scraggly white hair and peering eyes of Bilney. A
-trembling revolver flashed close to the door-jamb.</p>
-
-<p>Blindly, unthinkingly, Buchanan leaped forward and swung. He was in
-an ecstasy of terror. The report of the wild shot echoed like
-thunder an instant before his weapon sank in the skull of the
-trembling old man. He dropped, limply horrible. The revolver crashed
-to the floor.</p>
-
-<p>“Daddy!”</p>
-
-<p>Swiftly flying footsteps up the passage came to his ears like the
-approach of some avenging fate. He met the girl as she burst through
-the doorway. His hand closed over her mouth. Her anguished eyes
-blazed into his.</p>
-
-<div id='i002' class='mt01 mb01 wi002'>
-  <img src='images/illus-002.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' />
-  <p class='caption'>He met the girl as she burst through the doorway, her anguished eyes blazed into his and for a moment she seemed petrified with terror.</p>
-</div>
-<p>He was conscious, through his trance of fear and horror, of screams
-rising eerily through the night. He took his hand from her mouth
-long enough to rip out her silken sleeve, stuff it into her mouth,
-and bind it there with his bandana.</p>
-
-<p>She came to herself then, and fought like a wildcat as he tried to
-bind her hands and feet. It was half a minute before he succeeded.</p>
-
-<p>He did not wait to bind her feet, but hurried back toward those
-screams, careless of the blackness of the passageway. He ran into
-the table in the dining-room, and blundered toward the kitchen. The
-screams rose in a crescendo of utter terror as he approached.</p>
-
-<p>Moonlight filtered through the windows of the tiny bedroom, and by
-its dim illumination he could see the whites of staring eyes in the
-corner behind the bed. He jerked the gibbering old negro to her feet
-and his fist crashed to her jaw. He ripped and tore at the
-bed-sheets like a wild man, finally securing strips that answered
-for a gag and strands to secure arms and legs.</p>
-
-<p>He ran back to the office, to fall over the prone body of the old
-man. He rolled away from it as if from some living menace. He
-scrambled to his feet, his breath coming in labored gasps, and
-turned toward Judith, whom he had flung in the chair before the
-desk. She was limp, her face still set in lines that seemed frozen
-in agony. He finished his task of binding her.</p>
-
-<p>With the cash-box in his arms, Buchanan fled. It was the work of a
-moment to enter the small corral, fling the saddle that hung in the
-shed on the back of Judith’s saddle-horse, and mount.</p>
-
-<p>The whispering mesquit was the voice of phantom pursuers, the
-solitude terrible.</p>
-
-<p>He galloped to the little shack depot, and let himself in by
-smashing a window. The moon-rays through a window gave enough light
-to enable him to smash the telegraph instruments and the telephone.</p>
-
-<p>Then, without food or water, he set off at a wild gallop southward.
-His convulsed face was twisted backward over his shoulder as if he
-expected the blurred buildings behind him to give forth some avenger
-to follow him through the shadows reaching for him from every side.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Captain Perkins was sprawled in the swinging hammock on the porch of
-the recreation building, puffing deliberately at a short pipe. It
-was a little after ten o’clock in the evening. Presently the sheriff
-happened along.</p>
-
-<p>The lean-faced, square-jawed commanding officer was wrestling with
-some of the problems that his new detail had brought him.
-Transferred from the engineers a few months before, he had found
-that flyers bore little resemblance to the correct young West
-Pointers he had known in the infantry and the engineers. And his
-first detail as a commanding officer, he admitted frankly to
-himself, had him guessing.</p>
-
-<p>“I ain’t been around the border cavalry since Washington crossed the
-Delaware for nothin’,” the Sheriff advised him. “Cap’n, in my
-judgment, you got to figger this here Air Service as different from
-any other. Course, I may be jest a foolish old-timer which ought to
-o’ passed out quiet and decent a matter o’ ten years ago, but this
-here bunch o’ yours, and the other boys from down Laredo and Marfa
-way that I run into, have kinda sneaked under my hide. By and large,
-the idee o’ these planes spannin’ the border from California to the
-Gulf o’ Mexico, risin’ out o’ little cleared spots in the Big Bend
-and out there in Arizona, and these boys flyin’ ’em over them El
-Paso mountains and the deserts and this Godforsaken strip of
-mesquit, riskin’ their lives every minute they’re in the air—it’s
-kind o’ doggone romantic to even an old sand-rat like me.</p>
-
-<p>“And rememberin’ the times when fellers like Sam Edwards, which is
-now fat and a mayor and washes his neck regular, was r’arin’
-youngsters ridin’ down main streets drunk and shootin’, and
-rememberin’ what true-blue buddies and real hombres they was, makes
-me judge your boys in the same class.</p>
-
-<p>“And listen, son: the old days in this country meant that a man had
-to have guts or go under. Because they was men ridin’ the range and
-maintainin’ their necks as good as new by their own gun-play, the
-same red blood which showed in them things was responsible for
-what’s known now as the old ‘wild West’ stuff.</p>
-
-<p>“I reckon your boys are pioneers, Cap’n. To my notion, any man that
-picks this here flyin’ as a profession ain’t ever goin’ to get no
-kick out of a ten-cent-limit poker game. Where would yore Air
-Service be if the men in it was playin’ things safe?”</p>
-
-<p>He raised his voice at the last words, for the brooding silence of
-the night was shattered by the rolling explosions of a motor.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Spear’s battered roadster shot down the road, its huge headlights
-probing the darkness. It swooped around the sharp corner with
-breath-taking speed, stopped with startling celerity, and died into
-silence. The flyer strolled toward the porch, peering briefly at the
-two occupants thereof.</p>
-
-<p>“Hello,” he greeted them briefly, as he sank on the steps. “I want
-to inquire about the ringleader of that Barnes City tar-and-feather
-party I saw get off the train yesterday afternoon. Tall,
-hungry-looking guy with a long mustache.”</p>
-
-<p>“Name o’ Buchanan?” asked Trowbridge interestedly.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t remember his name, but it wasn’t Buchanan then—at least,
-not in his home town. He must have just got out of the lock-up.”</p>
-
-<p>“I met the individual referred to yesterday—Pappy George Bilney
-introduced him to me. They ’peared to have struck up considerable of
-a friendship on the way down,” the Sheriff said slowly. “I ain’t
-seen this feller around the town to-day, neither. Prob’ly George
-told him all his secrets, too, on the way down. He never has learnt
-that there’s bad men runnin’ around the border. I’ve often thought
-of what a good chance fer a robbery George’s emporium was, ’way off
-by itself thataway. By Godfrey, to-day’s the first o’ the month,
-too. I believe I’ll mosey up to see George and Judy t’morrer.” The
-Sheriff turned to Captain Perkins. “Cap’n, how about one o’ the boys
-flyin’ me up to Willett t’morrer? I shore am anxious to git up that
-way.”</p>
-
-<p>The commanding officer readily assented.</p>
-
-<p>“Thanks, Cap’n,” returned Trowbridge. “Sleepy, I ain’t noticed you
-rushin’ forward to offer yore services as chauffeur—”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I’ll be tickled pink,” yawned Sleepy.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Helmet and goggles in hand, Sleepy, the next morning, made his way
-to the line, where a huge figure interestedly watched the efforts of
-the mechanics.</p>
-
-<p>“Mornin’!” came the jovial hail of Trowbridge.</p>
-
-<p>Sleepy nodded. The big twelve-cylinder Liberty increased its roar as
-the sergeant shoved the throttle wide open. The men, holding each
-wing and the tail, buckled to their work as the whirring propeller
-pulled the wheels against the blocks with seemingly irresistible
-force.</p>
-
-<p>Slowly the drum of the mighty cylinders tapered off as the mechanics
-drew back the throttle. Spears adjusted helmet and goggles, and then
-helped in the Sheriff, who looked like an old eagle.</p>
-
-<p>One of the mechanics saw to it that the belt was safely snapped
-around him while Sleepy took a look at his instruments from beneath
-drooping eyelids. The air-pressure was two and a half and the
-oil-pressure a safe thirty. Quick trials of each switch proved that
-both sets of plugs were working perfectly. Temperature 70
-Centigrade, voltmeter charging, gasoline pet-cocks switched on the
-main tank, horizontal stabilizer at neutral—the maze of wheels and
-instruments and pet-cocks and pumps that filled the cock-pit made a
-connected story which his drowsy eyes read effortlessly.</p>
-
-<p>He glanced back at the Sheriff, who filled the rear cock-pit to
-overflowing. The Sheriff waved a puffy arm to signify his readiness
-to depart.</p>
-
-<p>At Sleepy’s nod, the mechanics pulled the blocks from the wheels,
-and then swarmed at the edge of the left wing, holding it back while
-Sleepy turned the De Haviland around with full gun and left rudder
-on as far as it would go. Without stopping for a moment, he
-neutralized his rudder, shoved the stick forward, and in a moment
-was scudding across the field with accelerating speed. The pilot sat
-carelessly, his right arm draped restfully on the padded cowling
-that rimmed the cock-pit.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>Without any reason at all, he gave the ship right rudder, and it
-swerved to the right; then left rudder, and a quick left turn was
-the result. In a moment the ground sank below them; then Sleepy
-banked carelessly, his lower wing barely three feet above the
-ground. Then a left bank, combined with a mild zoom, and the
-thirty-four-hundred-pound ship lifted over the hangars on the
-western edge of the field in a climbing turn, seeming literally to
-graze the sides, so close was it.</p>
-
-<p>The pilot looked back with a slow grin, to see Sheriff Trowbridge
-holding to the cowling as if the force of his grip might make some
-difference.</p>
-
-<p>“He flies too casual-like,” was Trowbridge’s judgment, before he
-lost himself in the joy of the rushing air. The flat, misty earth
-was now five hundred feet below them as they circled the airdrome.</p>
-
-<p>Sleepy pulled back the throttle until the tachometer showed fifteen
-hundred revolutions a minute, and wheeled the stabilizer forward a
-trifle until the ship rode level. By means of the stabilizer a ship
-can be made nose or tail heavy by changing the angle of the two flat
-surfaces on the tail.</p>
-
-<p>A quick glance at the many little glass-covered gauges before him
-showed that everything was all right. The ship rode the smooth, cool
-morning air buoyantly, and by the time it had made one circle of the
-field had reached a thousand feet. Sleepy threw it into a vertical
-bank, and in a moment the railroad was in sight, leading northward
-through the mesquit.</p>
-
-<p>He hunched down farther in the seat, until the great motor ahead of
-him shut off all forward vision. His right arm rested limply on the
-cowling, and his feet were propped comfortably on the rudder-bar.
-The car-shattering roar of the Liberty was as soothing as a lullaby
-to his accustomed ears. He did not vouchsafe a glance at the
-receding ground below. He settled down for the forty-minute trip as
-if in an automobile.</p>
-
-<p>Sheriff Trowbridge was in the seventh heaven. The billowing mesquit,
-fading into dim nothingness twenty miles away, the rush of the air,
-the speed with which familiar landmarks were picked up and left
-behind, all represented the greatest thrill the veteran had ever
-experienced in his variegated career.</p>
-
-<p>The southeast wind blowing from the Gulf of Mexico was slightly
-stronger than usual, and in thirty-five minutes the Sheriff glimpsed
-the clearing that represented Willett. The sun had burned away the
-ground-mist, and each tiny tree and weather-stained railroad-tie
-stood out plainly in the clear golden air. He shook the stick in the
-back seat—the usual signal from cock-pit to cock-pit. Sleepy, who
-had been sitting as motionless as an image, did not immediately take
-cognizance of the signal. Not until the Sheriff had actually caused
-the ship to wabble with the force of his hand on the stick did the
-pilot turn his heavy-lidded eyes backward. Trowbridge unthinkingly
-threw out an arm to point. The combined force of the propeller blast
-and a hundred and twenty miles an hour of speed knocked it backward
-with painful suddenness; but Sleepy understood.</p>
-
-<p>The tiny station and the store warehouses and corral, with the
-barely discernible road leading past the store and to the station,
-labeled their destination plainly. The clearing skirted the road on
-the south side, and appeared to be about four hundred yards long and
-a hundred yards wide.</p>
-
-<p>Sleepy cut the motor to thirteen hundred and fifty revolutions, and
-as he nosed down, the speedometer jumped to a hundred and
-thirty-five miles an hour. In a shallow spiral he circled the field,
-dropping down to twenty-five hundred. Then he nosed upward and
-banked smoothly to the left, jamming on full right rudder as the big
-ship tilted. It shot downward on the tip of the left wing in a
-wicked side-slip. Trowbridge grabbed his goggles to keep them from
-blowing sideways, and strove to get his breath and conquer that
-sinking sensation in his stomach. In a moment the nose dropped, and
-in a smooth wing-turn the ship zoomed upward again and banked to the
-right. Another side-slip to the right, and they were down to fifteen
-hundred feet.</p>
-
-<p>With a somewhat strained smile twisting his lips, the Sheriff
-watched Sleepy handle his ship. The flyer’s eyes rested steadily on
-the field below, and he seemed to fly instinctively. Alternately to
-the right and left, the roaring ship dropped downward. At five
-hundred feet Sleepy gave it full gun and flashed across the field
-for a last look. It appeared to be a close-cut hayfield, with no
-particular obstacle except a shallow ditch cutting diagonally across
-the northeast corner.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>The ship swept out of the slip barely a foot above the ground, and
-sped across the ground with quickly decreasing speed. For a
-split-second it seemed to hover, and at the instant Sleepy jerked
-the stick back. Came the crunch of the tail skid and the rumble of
-the wheels on the ground in a perfect three-point landing. Most
-people do not know that alongside a perfect landing most of the
-thrilling acrobatic flying they “oh” and “ah” is child’s play.</p>
-
-<p>The big plane stopped rolling a hundred yards short of the end of
-the field, and Sleepy promptly turned off the gas pet-cock, to allow
-the motor to run itself out of gas. By this method damaging backfire
-in the expensive, fragile motor would be impossible. In a moment the
-Liberty sputtered and died, and the seven-foot propeller came to
-rest. He clicked off the switches and released the air-pressure.</p>
-
-<p>“You use these things right careless-like,” came the Sheriff’s
-voice, vague because ear-drums were still humming from the roar of
-the motor.</p>
-
-<p>The pilot unstrapped himself, climbed out, and leaned restfully
-against the trailing edge of a wing while he set fire to a cigarette
-and watched the Sheriff release himself from his belt and climb out.</p>
-
-<p>“Funny there ain’t nobody out to greet us,” remarked Trowbridge.
-“Let’s mosey over to the emporium.” The front door was closed; and
-there was not a sign of life. They went to the back door, and the
-Sheriff knocked without result. He tried the door experimentally,
-and it opened.</p>
-
-<p>“I don’t quite get the lay,” said Trowbridge, as he led Spears into
-the sitting-room. “O George! You lazy old counter-jumper, where be
-yuh?”</p>
-
-<p>A muffled cry came to them from the store. Without a word,
-Trowbridge lumbered swiftly up the passageway that led to the store,
-Spears behind him.</p>
-
-<p>“Great God!” breathed the Sheriff, as he reached the office door.
-Almost before the words were out of his mouth, Sleepy was peering
-over his shoulder at the gruesome tableau.</p>
-
-<p>The body of Bilney he almost forgot for the moment, as he met the
-tearless, burning eyes of the girl, eery above the gag-bandage that
-covered her face. Trowbridge dropped to his knees beside the body of
-his friend. With a catlike leap, Spears hurdled the body and ripped
-at the girl’s bonds. Her large eyes gave him the creeps—they seemed
-like the only part of her alive.</p>
-
-<p>“He’s still alive,” said Trowbridge, with ominous calmness, as he
-arose. “Judy girl, what happened?”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>For a moment the girl neither moved nor spoke. Sleepy stood quietly
-beside her, his narrowed eyes watching the girl unwinkingly, as cold
-as the glint of sunlight on ice.</p>
-
-<p>Then, in lifeless tones, the girl told the story while Trowbridge
-gently wiped her father’s wound with his bandana. As her story
-unfolded, her low-pitched voice grew louder. Suddenly the barriers
-of her artificial repression gave way. With a heart-rending cry, she
-threw herself on the body of her father. Her hands caressed his
-thin, blood-stained gray hair, and her lips were pressed to his
-withered cheek.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m gittin’ some water,” said Trowbridge slowly, and disappeared.</p>
-
-<p>Without speaking, Sleepy went into the store and caught up a
-blanket. He returned, and wrapped it round the girl in her torn
-nightgown. Then he put one arm under her and gently raised her to
-her feet as the Sheriff returned with a basin of water. Spears led
-the sobbing girl to a chair.</p>
-
-<p>In silence broken only by the girl’s weeping, Trowbridge washed and
-bound the wound. Then he slowly got to his feet, his mahogany face a
-mask from which two thin slits flashed wrath that was terrible in
-its all-consuming force.</p>
-
-<p>“I’d die happy the minute after I’d shot the skunk that did this,”
-he rasped, his face working suddenly.</p>
-
-<p>“If you’ll shoot as you never shot before, maybe you can get him,”
-said Spears, the timbre of his voice subtly different. “Listen. This
-Buchanan would make for the border, wouldn’t he?”</p>
-
-<p>“Uh-huh.”</p>
-
-<p>“If it wasn’t for leaving Miss Judith and her father here alone—”</p>
-
-<p>The Sheriff comprehended the generalities of Spears’s plan
-immediately. He whirled on Judith.</p>
-
-<p>“Where’s Cissy, Judy?” he asked.</p>
-
-<p>“I—I don’t know. She——”</p>
-
-<p>Trowbridge plunged down the passageway. In a moment he returned,
-leading the half-dead old negress.</p>
-
-<p>“Listen, Judy; you say you heard Buchanan take your horse?”</p>
-
-<p>The girl nodded, her face hidden in her arms.</p>
-
-<p>“Cissy, you take care o’ Mr. Bilney. Judy girl, get yoreself
-together and ride Buchanan’s horse to the nearest telephone. ’Phone
-the airdrome at McMullen, and tell ’em to send Doc Spurgin up here
-by ship to tend to yore daddy—I believe the doc can save him. Spears
-and I’ll take after this coyote, and mebbe we can find him.”</p>
-
-<p>He looked at Spears, and for the first time noticed the change in
-him. Glowing eyes, body like a coiled spring—he gave an impression
-of leashed power waiting eagerly to be unbound.</p>
-
-<p>“Let’s be about it,” he said briefly.</p>
-
-<p>Together, as gently as possible, they lifted Mr. Bilney’s
-unconscious form and carried it to his room.</p>
-
-<p>“Git dressed and start, Judy; we’ll see that the horse is ready,”
-said the Sheriff. “We’re on our way.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I hope you get him!” the girl said passionately. She seemed
-ablaze as she stood there, a statue of vengeance personified.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>The horse was in the corral, unsaddled. It was the work of a moment
-for the Sheriff to saddle him. Meanwhile Sleepy made for the ship
-with long strides.</p>
-
-<p>He climbed into the cock-pit, and without a single lost motion
-turned on the gas, set the air-pump, and rapidly pumped up the air
-to three pounds. This done, he adjusted the priming pet-cock and
-sent three stiff shots of gasoline into the cylinders. As Trowbridge
-came lumbering across the field, Sleepy was twirling the propeller.
-The effortless ease with which he overcame the compression of the
-big motor and the weight of the heavy stick would have been an
-eye-opener to some of Spears’s best friends.</p>
-
-<p>“Ready, son?” bellowed Trowbridge.</p>
-
-<p>“Just about. Here’s the scheme. He’ll probably stay pretty close to
-the railroad in order to keep a straight course for the border,
-won’t he?”</p>
-
-<p>The puffing representative of the law nodded.</p>
-
-<p>“Keep a close watch. If we spot him, I’ll go low and stall the ship.
-When it hovers for a minute, shoot. I believe you can hit. It’ll be
-ticklish work, Sheriff. I may not be able to catch the ship again
-after the stall.”</p>
-
-<p>“What do I care?” Trowbridge burst forth.</p>
-
-<p>“I didn’t think you would. How can we make sure when we’ve found our
-man?” asked Spears.</p>
-
-<p>“I’d know Judy’s pony anywhere,” declared the old man truculently.</p>
-
-<p>Without another word, Sleepy went back to the cock-pit and snapped
-on the switches.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll pull you—I’m more used to this cranking than you are.”</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>As the Sheriff set himself with one hand on the prop, Spears grasped
-his other wrist with both of his hands. In time to the count, the
-two men swung backward and forward, without moving the propeller
-until “Three!”</p>
-
-<p>With all his strength, Spears jerked the Sheriff away from the
-stick. The huge body actually left the ground under the power of the
-pilot’s pull. The Liberty caught, and Spears leaped for the cock-pit
-to advance the spark and throttle until there was no danger of the
-motor dying.</p>
-
-<p>Trowbridge removed his cover-alls, literally tearing them off in his
-haste. His inseparable companions, the two big six-shooters, came
-into view, their pearl butts protruding from the swinging holsters.
-By the time Spears had strapped himself in and had begun to run the
-motor up in a quick warm-up, his passenger was ready.</p>
-
-<p>When the temperature-gauge showed 60 Centigrade, the flyer glanced
-back. The Sheriff was standing up, peering at the instruments over
-his shoulder. For a second two pairs of gleaming eyes met in
-wordless appraisal. To the old man the devil that danced behind the
-cold sheen of the pilot’s eyes meant many things. In that moment was
-born an understanding which went deeper than mutual participation in
-the coming venture—it was a revealment of the fundamentals in the
-younger man’s make-up.</p>
-
-<p>Without a word Spears turned and gave the De Haviland the gun. It
-skidded around in a close circle, and then with the ever-increasing
-roar of the Liberty sped across the field on its mission.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>At two thousand feet they had a clear radius of vision of ten miles.
-The tachometer showed seventeen hundred revolutions a minute as with
-wide-open motor the ship drove toward the border at a hundred and
-twenty miles an hour. Ceaselessly two pairs of eyes searched the
-far-flung desert of mesquit below, striving to spot the figure of a
-horseman.</p>
-
-<p>Spears figured that, provided Judith’s estimate of time was correct,
-Buchanan would have covered about forty miles. She thought that the
-crime had been committed about one o’clock. He was flying a few
-miles west of the railroad, in the belief that his prey would strike
-a straight course for the border. With all his heart the grim-faced
-pilot hoped that they might find him. Time after time the tableau in
-the barren little office arose before his eyes, momentarily blotting
-out the flat green panorama below. With every fiber of him he craved
-personal vengeance—the opportunity to wreak punishment on the man
-who had left a girl bound and gagged to watch over her all but dead
-father.</p>
-
-<p>Twenty minutes out, both men redoubled the minute care with which
-they searched the ground, which was like a painted curtain half a
-mile below. It was Trowbridge who suddenly grasped the stick and
-rocked the ship back and forth exultantly.</p>
-
-<p>Spears turned and his eyes followed the Sheriff’s pointing finger.
-Sure enough, there was a mounted man crossing a tiny clearing, two
-or three miles to the westward. Without cutting his motor, Spears
-nosed down.</p>
-
-<p>Struts vibrated madly, and wires shrilled to the terrific speed of
-the ship as it darted earthward. Little by little, Spears shot
-downward in a tight spiral, the pivot point of which was the now
-galloping figure below. Like some prehistoric monster circling for a
-kill, the De Haviland roared earthward.</p>
-
-<div id='i003' class='mt01 mb01 wi003'>
-  <img src='images/illus-003.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' />
-  <p class='caption'>Little by little, Spears shot downward toward the galloping figure below</p>
-</div>
-<p>As he reduced the motor revolutions to a thousand, Spears frequently
-jazzed the throttle to keep the spark-plugs from fouling with oil.
-In a moment he would need every bit of the Liberty’s four hundred
-and fifty horsepower—and need it without a second’s delay on the
-motor’s part.</p>
-
-<p>At two hundred feet, half a mile back of Buchanan, who was now
-invisible, Spears shoved the throttle wide open. The motor sputtered
-a moment, and then caught. The ship hurtled across the mesquit like
-a drab brown comet. The sensation of speed so close to the ground
-was tremendous. In a few seconds they flashed across a wildly
-galloping horse carrying a man whose upturned face was a smudge of
-white.</p>
-
-<p>Spears, hunched down behind the wind shield, turned his head and
-glanced inquiringly at his passenger. Trowbridge nodded violently.</p>
-
-<p>Spears banked so suddenly that it threw the Sheriff against the side
-of his cock-pit. The De Haviland swept around to the left, mushing
-slightly because of its terrific speed. Sleepy kept it nosed down
-until it was scraping the tops of the mesquit trees as he
-straightened out once more.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>A hundred yards back of the fleeing Buchanan, he cut the gun. The
-ship swept on with decreasing speed. A few yards behind the man on
-the ground, its speed was seventy-five miles an hour. Trowbridge,
-fighting the wind-blast, was standing up, both guns in his hands.</p>
-
-<p>Then Sleepy took his chance. He nosed up, banking to the right at
-the same time. For a second the airplane hovered, right wing down,
-above its prey. Each of Trowbridge’s guns spoke twice. Like a flash,
-Sleepy rammed the throttle full on, glimpsing the fall of the horse
-below out of the corner of his eyes.</p>
-
-<p>The fouled plugs did not catch immediately, and the infinitesimal
-delay was fatal. The ship, being so low and having lost flying
-speed, could not stay in the air any longer, and there was not
-altitude enough to pull out. In that split-second Sleepy had an
-opportunity, however, to do what he had planned all along if he did
-not win his gamble—for he had never planned that the grizzled
-old-timer in the back seat should take his full share of the flying
-chances.</p>
-
-<p>Banked as it was, full top rudder would have dashed the ship into
-the ground on its side, and the Sheriff would have borne the brunt
-of the crash. Instead, Sleepy shoved the stick forward as far as it
-would go. With his arm thrown in front of his face, he rammed the
-ship into the ground. Wings sheered off on trees, and then came a
-stupendous crash that marked the cessation of consciousness for the
-pilot.</p>
-
-<p>Trowbridge, stunned as his head was dashed against the front cowling
-of the cock-pit, found himself lying on his side in the middle of a
-twisted mass that represented the broken fuselage. He struggled
-weakly, and then sank back with a groan. Apparently his collar-bone
-was broken, and his right arm for some reason would not function.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>He fumbled at the belt dazedly, and succeeded in freeing himself.
-Bit by bit, he crawled out of the débris, looking around for Spears.
-As he dragged himself out, the spat of a revolver sounded, and the
-whine of a bullet past his head made him duck so suddenly that he
-nearly fainted with the pain.</p>
-
-<p>He peered toward the place where the shot had apparently come from,
-shielded from sight by the wreckage. Fifty yards away was the
-carcass of the dead horse, and even as he looked a man’s head lifted
-itself above the body. Trowbridge snaked his way the few inches to
-the remains of the cock-pit, and was rewarded with a shot that
-drilled through the débris just beside him. He found one of his
-guns, jammed between two twisted longerons. As his groping hand
-grasped it, a searing pain in his left leg seemed to come
-simultaneously with the crack of another shot.</p>
-
-<p>It was a moment before his will proved superior to the physical
-weakness that all but overpowered him. Then he started to crawl,
-with infinite pains, the foot necessary to reach a point of vantage.
-Through the twisted wreckage he peered with bloodshot eyes, his
-sixshooter in his left hand.</p>
-
-<div id='i004' class='mt01 mb01 wi004'>
-  <img src='images/illus-004.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' />
-  <p class='caption'>Trowbridge’s right arm was wounded. With infinite pains, he crawled out, his revolver in his left hand.</p>
-</div>
-<p>In two minutes he was rewarded. Once again Buchanan’s head protruded
-slightly from his barricade. Trowbridge sighted, this time, his gun
-resting on a piece of shattered ash. With all the remnants of his
-strength, he forced himself to be careful. When the gun spoke,
-Buchanan’s head dropped limply on the horse.</p>
-
-<p>It took the Sheriff two hours to bind the flesh wound in his leg and
-release Spears. The pilot was lying half under the motor, which had
-been jammed part way through the fuselage, leaving barely a foot of
-clearance between itself and the back of the pilot’s seat. One of
-Spears’s legs was caught under it, and an unnaturally bent arm told
-its own story. Trowbridge did not succeed in bringing him back to
-consciousness before he himself tumbled over in the blazing heat of
-the Texas sun. Above, three vultures hovered curiously.</p>
-
-<div style='height:1em;'></div>
-<p>At ten-thirty in the morning, when no word had come of the ship’s
-safe arrival at Willett, every plane at McMullen, except the two on
-patrol, was ordered out on the search. Jimmy Jennings found the
-wreck. From that time on, a ship was constantly hovering over the
-spot to guide the ground party. It was ten o’clock at night when Tex
-MacDowell’s De Haviland, equipped with wing-lights, brought the
-rescue expedition to the crash. The men were brought back to
-McMullen on a special engine and caboose furnished by the little
-jerkwater railroad.</p>
-
-<p>Spears came to briefly at the start of the trip, and did not wake up
-again until the next afternoon, when he found himself in the
-McMullen hospital, with Sheriff Trowbridge—none of whose bones had
-been broken—sitting beside his bed, and Captain Perkins standing at
-the foot. In a moment Major Searles, the flight surgeon, came in
-with the hospital physician.</p>
-
-<p>“Welcome back,” grinned the Sheriff.</p>
-
-<p>“Glad to be here,” returned Sleepy weakly. “Doc, what’s ailing me?”</p>
-
-<p>“Three broken ribs, a broken leg, and compound fracture of the right
-arm,” replied the hospital man briskly. “We can fix you up as good
-as new.”</p>
-
-<p>“Outside of that, I’m all right, eh?” yawned the pilot “Did you get
-Buchanan, Sheriff?”</p>
-
-<p>“In two parts,” stated the Sheriff. “Polished off the job after we
-landed. Bilney is comin’ along O.K. He and Judith are over to my
-house. She says she’s aimin’ to be an assistant nurse for you soon’s
-her daddy gets better.”</p>
-
-<p>Sleepy’s square face lightened with a slow smile.</p>
-
-<p>“What’s a few broken arms and legs compared to that prospect?” he
-queried gently. His eyelids dropped farther, and in a moment he was
-asleep again. The four men tiptoed out. Trowbridge stopped at the
-door and looked back on the tousled hair and tranquil face of the
-flyer.</p>
-
-<p>“I think I’ll get to understand a lot of things better down here if
-the border continues like this,” said the commanding officer.</p>
-
-<p>The Sheriff closed the door gently.</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” he drawled, “it is a fine place to git a valuation on real
-hombres.”</p>
-
-</div>
-<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SKY SHERIFF ***</div>
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